For some reason my phone decided to turn perfectly adequate pictures into blurry nightmares. Sorry, friends, but I can’t fix it for some reason.

I wanted to try the “Russian style” of tea. My mum was going to England, and I knew I could get this tea at Whittard. Whittard has not disappointed me with the quality of their teas, and since I knew that she was going there anyway to buy tea for her friend, I asked her to get this too. .

Type: Black

Instructions from packet: Use fresh water. Water left in the kettle loses vitality and makes tea taste dull. Rinse the pot with boiling water to bring out the tea’s flavour. Add 3-4 teaspoons of tea to a 6-cup pot. Pour in boiling water and leave to brew for 3-4 minutes. Pour through a strainer; add milk to taste. Whether you add milk before or after is open to debate.

Description from packet: A blend of China teas, the name comes from the 17th century when camel caravans transported China tea to Europe. During the journey, the teas took on the smoky taste of the campfires. We launched it just after the First World War and it still captures a spirit of adventure. An aromatic and full-bodied tea with a sweet, malty taste.

Ingredients: 100% black tea.

The look: The tea is a mixture of leaf cuts: some are fine and coiled whereas others are long and straight. The leaves are a rich brownish black colour.

The smell: The tea smells very strong with a soft maltiness to it too. There’s something fresh and sweet about how it smells, too.

First steeping: A very, very strong black tea with a mellow smoky flavour. This tea is bold! As you drink it, it mellows out a little bit, but that sweet (but not sickly), pleasant maltiness remains. This blend has apparently existed for almost a hundred years, and I can understand why. It is a very enjoyable cup of tea.

Second steeping: I suppose you can steep this twice, but the second steeping conjures up images of builder’s tea in my mind. It’s acceptable, but it doesn’t have any of the complexity of the first steeping.

This is the typical jasmine green tea that you can find in most Chinese grocery stores. It’s also the cheapest. A box costs usually about $0.99 for bags or loose-leaf, though I’d say the loose-leaf is better tasting (and better value). I bought a tin of it (which is the same amount as the box) for about $2.99 in Chinatown. It’s manufactured by Fujian Tea Import and Export co. Ltd.; they also make oolong and regular green teas, but I’d say their jasmine tea is probably the best of all of them. It’s a good value for money.

Type: Green

Instructions from packet: Take 3g of tea, pour boiling water. Keep covered for about 5 min, then serve.

Description from packet: ‘Commodity Name: Jasmine Tea’

Ingredients: Green Tea and Jasmine Flowers

The look: Dark greenish brown leaves.

The smell: Distinct smell of jasmine, not very much smell of the green tea. almost like a perfume.

First steeping: A little more full-bodied than the Japanese green tea I reviewed earlier. A nice green tea, but with a different flavour, since it’s a Chinese green tea, which has a different drying process than Japanese green tea. Very warming, with a nice floral taste that isn’t sickly, but subtle. It’s also not too bitter.

Second steeping: Definitely watery, with a loss of green tea flavour. The jasmine flavour tends to overpower, so I would not recommend resteeping.

The look: Fine, small dark green leaves with largeish chunks of dried papaya.

The smell: The only thing I can smell is the dried papaya. It makes me think of a popsicle due to the sweet fruitiness of it, but there’s a vague milkiness to it too.

First steeping: The tea is astringent. The papaya flavour dominates. The tea has a bitter after taste.

Second steeping: At first, the second steeping is watery and unpleasant. Even though I’d read resteeping is recommended, perhaps I needed to use more tea. I left it to steep a little longer and returned to it. Leaving it for an extra five minutes marginally improves it. Drinking it twenty-thirty minutes after the initial steep it becomes actually quite pleasant, but this seems an unreasonable amount of time to wait.

Rating: 5/10. I really, really like papaya (I mean, I have a tag on my blog that’s ‘papaya is so good‘), but the astringency and bitterness seem chemical in nature.

Instructions from packet: Place the tea bag into your cup and power in hot water 80C (176F). The tag can be hooked on to the edge of the cup. Note: Avoid using boiling water.

After just 20-30 seconds shake the bag in the hot water 3 to 4 times, remove and enjoy. (Matcha will float and/or rest on the bottom of cup).

Empty remaining Matcha from outer envelope to surface of tea.

Description from packet: Kirkland Signature Green Tea is made with Sencha Green Tea from Japan’s lush tea plantations, known for producing some of the best teas in the world. In keeping with Japanese tradition, Kirkland Signature Green Tea is gently steamed, rolled, and then dried. This minimal processing stops the oxidation and preserves the freshness, aroma, and colour of the tea leaf.

Matcha, a green tea powder made from specially harvested leaves, is added to enhance flavour and taste. Our premium nylon tea bag allows for optimum water flow during the brewing process. Store in a cool, dry place.

Not to snark on the description, but totally to snark, they really need a copy-editor…

Ingredients: Green tea, matcha powder

The look: Bright green small leaves in a quality tea bag, coated with green (matcha) powder.

The smell: Grassy and reminiscent of spring.

First steeping: It has a very clean, smooth taste. It’s an unimposing tea. I could probably drink endless cups of this. It is surprisingly good quality for something from a warehouse, though I suppose Costco’s store brand is renowned for quality products. The production of this tea was outsourced to Ito-En, a Japanese tea manufacturer.

Second steeping: It’s watery, but not horrible. I wouldn’t really recommend a second steeping.

Rating: 7/10; maybe I need to get the water at the right temperature, but I didn’t find it bad to have it made with boiling water.

My cousin Julie bought me this tea and sent it back from England with my mum. Whittard’s is apparently a famous tea house in London, though I assume they have branches in other parts of the UK too.

Type: Green

Instructions from packet: For the perfect cup of Zhejiang Gunpowder Green Tea, use one pyramid per cup and always use freshly drawn and boiled water. Allow to brew for 2-3 minutes or according to taste. Should be drunk without milk.

Description from packet: From the Chinese province of Zhejiang, this is a high quality gunpowder tea with tightly rolled pellets and a shiny green appearance. Mistaken for actual gunpowder by 16th century traders, this is a vibrant tea with distinctive sweet and smoky overtones.

Ingredients: 100% green tea

The look: Dark, blackish green-brown tightly coiled leaves in a nice pyramid-style tea bag. Essentially, it’s a convenient loose-leaf, which is good for people who don’t like having tea leaves floating around.

The smell: It smells a little sweet, though there’s no real smoky smell. A kind of complex smell, I suppose.

First steeping: A strong smoky flavour dominates, but doesn’t overpower. It mellows out on the tongue. It is a good quality Chinese green tea, or Chinese-style. The smokiness improves as you drink. The flavour is pretty straightforward

Second steeping: The second steeping is actually not too bad, though obviously a bit less flavourful. The flavours are essentially the same as the first steeping, so re-steeping at least once is a possibility.

Rating: 7.5/10. I don’t always like to have smoky tea, but this one is good for when I’d like to.

Dry tea and first steeping (see the odd lumps floating on the surface)

Dad got a pack of ‘energising’ teas as a gift a while ago, so I’ve decided to exploit it and use some of them. It’s also been a while since I wrote a tea review… Chocolate Rocket is in a lot of David’s Tea gift packs, so I’ve tried it before, I think, or maybe I’ve tried a sample at David’s Tea, or maybe I had some at Kate’s… I’m not really sure. I’ve never really had this type of tea before, though. It’s supposedly high in caffeine. I didn’t really feel any ‘kick’ when I drank it, though.

The look: Chunks of what I presume to be rasperries (or the cocoa nibs? or both?) and sliced almonds dominate this tea. The yerba maté itself is very fine, quite green, squareish leaves.

The smell: Sweet, but not sickly. Rather like an inoffensive chocolate and fruit pastry or scone at a café – there is potential there, but it’s probably just OK. There is a slight nuttiness to it too, which is pleasant.

First steeping: It’s odd, because bits of the tea float to the surface, and I think they’re the cocoa nibs (cacao nibs?) but they taste kind of like chocolate covered raspberries without the sweetness. I actually like this part of the tea, but I think I’d rather have it as a treat than in a tea. It’s a little irritating, though, because they kind of push themselves on you (as if they have malevolent agency, really) and you can’t really help but eat them since they keep bumping against your lip as you drink. Anyways, the first steeping of this tea is a little disappointing. It’s very mild, and tastes kind of weak. It’s the type of thing you kind of regret making, but then you think, well I’ve made it, and it doesn’t taste terrible, just pretty much of nothing, so I’m going to finish it since I have to write this tea review, after all. I have read though that yerba maté‘s first steeping is often thrown out in South America.

Second steeping: At first, the second steeping is watery and unpleasant. I left it to steep another five minutes, and it marginally improved it. Leaving it for another twenty or thirty minutes led to a rather pleasantly mild tea (unlike the weak mildness of the first steeping). It does seem unreasonable to steep it that long. It might be prudent to use more than the recommended amount of tea in order to avoid the weakness problem.

Rating: 5/10. It smells very nice indeed, and is pretty inoffensive, but I wouldn’t seek it out myself again. If it comes in another gift pack, I’ll probably drink it, but I’d reach for other teas first.

The look: It’s a very ‘chunky’ tea. Whole yellow mulberries and largeish pieces of shaved coconut surround the twiggy white tea. Sometimes it is difficult to see the tea itself.

The smell: Very, very sweet, almost sickly. The mulberries (and possibly the flavouring in the ingredients) overpower everything else. Smelling this tea is not appealing at all.

First steeping: Sweet, but not so sweet as it smells. The coconut mellows out the mulberries, but the delicacy of the white tea is indiscernible. I had two cups of ‘first steeping.’ One was made in my ‘thermos’ (not really a thermos but a take-away tea thing that I can’t describe in one word…) and is pictured above. It gets quite a deep colour. The other first steeping is also pictured above, in cup. It looks very pretty when it is first steeping. This cup was a little more delicate than the thermos cup, but the thermos cup had been sitting in the thermos for a solid hour. This tea is definitely good for taking away and not drinking right away.

Second steeping: The flavours become very vague. I wouldn’t recommend steeping this tea twice.

Rating: 4/10; I like the concept, but I don’t really like the tea a whole lot. Drinking it also gives me a weird feeling in the back of my mouth.

I like Harrods teas, and while I was at the airport I picked up this one. I haven’t tried Assam tea, or rather anything that explicitly labels itself as such. I thought it was worth a try. It cost £4.50 ($8.30/125g). There are several other teas in this line, including a green tea with bergamot which I bought in August and recently finished. I also bought the regular green tea of the line, but wasn’t really impressed with it. To be honest I prefer sencha to full leaf green tea, or whatever one calls it. That tea lives at my office at the university. Anyways, onto the tea at hand:

Type: Black

Instructions from packet: For the perfect cup of tea, first warm the teapot with a small amount of boiling water and empty, adding one teaspoon of leaf tea for each cup and an ‘extra one for the pot’. Pour over freshly boiled water and leave to brew for three to five minutes, then stir, and add milk, sugar or honey to taste.

Description from packet: “A bright, coppery liquor with a perfectly rounded malty flavour.”; “Characterised by its strong, full bodied, coppery-bright and malty liquor, this tea grows in selected gardens of the Assam region, nourished by the waters of the mighty Brahmaputra. Lively as the river and aromatic as the gentle valleys of its origin, the leaves yield a deep golden brew with a bright and malty flavour. Brew strong and drink with milk for an exceptional morning cup.

I started liking oolong tea very recently, after a long time thinking I hated it (since I only tried really cheap oolong). I bought some small 2-3 cup sized packets at David’s Tea, and ended up really liking their Ginseng Oolong. I decided I wanted to try another kind, so I bought their Quangzhou Milk Oolong.

Top left: dry tea; top right: first steeping in oolong pot; bottom left: first steeping; bottom right: second steeping

Type: Oolong

Description from packet: This ultra-rare oolong from the Wuji Mountains of China is velvety smooth and

The smell: It smells incredibly creamy, with a very vague hint of oolong and ‘bitterness’.

First steeping: It does actually taste milky. The oolong flavour itself is quite mild. This is a very delicate tea; for me it feels like something I’d drink at breakfast. I can’t taste many other flavours. It reminds me for some reason or other of brown rice green teas – it could be that there’s almost a ‘toasted’ flavour to it.

Second steeping: It tastes pretty much the same as the first steeping, but a bit lighter.

It’s from Adventure Time, which is a children’s TV show I like probably way too much. I also use way too many gifs on this blog from that show. Gifs like these:

I drove 260km today on the highway both ways which I feel is pretty impressive, seeing as I didn’t want to ever go on the highway two weeks ago. I’m a decent driver, I think.. I hope. I try to be considerate of all road users, but those behind me get impatient and sometimes honk…

Oh, you wanted me to go over the speed limit and hit a pedestrian. Soz no – my face when you do this

The other day I went to Sephora to pick up yet more hair ties that mum and I really like, but they keep stretching out (like way too fast…) and getting lost. Also Brutus loves playing with them. I unfortunately don’t have an illustrative video of it, so you’ll have to take my word on that one.

The hair ties in question

I realised that I’ve saved over 1000 Sephora points, which is probably super shameful, though I have been saving them over 5 years, and it works out to a slightly more reasonable $200/year, some of which is from my mum (and some of which is gifts!), who doesn’t have her own Sephora card. I decided to take the plunge and spend 500 of those points on a cute Occitane en Provence set, which included five little products which I hope will be good for the plane. I got a free face cream from Occitane with a magazine in August (British magazines always include presents and it always disappoints me that they never do here) which I quite liked. The set comes with a shea butter hand cream, almond delicious hands (sounds a bit like they threw darts at a board to name this, but apparently it’s supposed to be reminiscent of macarons), almond shower oil, verbena body lotion, and almond supple skin oil. I hope they will be useful in keeping my skin from desiccating on the plane.

When I’m old and still have decent skin

The set.

The best part is that the set came with a cute little pouch that looks like a postcard. I like the pouch because it’s the perfect size for my phone. I try to always keep my phone in a pouch so it doesn’t get scratched or damaged.

I’m also really into music videos that include noise from the scene being acted out right now, especially this one that my friend sent me for “Odd Look” by Kavinsky:

Here’s hoping for a productive two days before leaving for England. I’ve reviewed my 25 before 25 in brief, and I’ve put the ones that I’ve actually made progress on in colour, so you can skip all the waffling about goals and junk.

Drawing every day – Well, not quite, but I’m trying to draw as much as possible.

Muumipappa ja meri– Haven’t started reading it yet

Finnish diary – Not every day, but I’m writing every so often

Scrapbook – Yes! It’s coming along

Lifting bodyweight – It’s hard to maintain a consistent schedule since I don’t know where I’m going to live and I don’t want to commit to a year of gym time/money if I’m not going to be there to lift. I’m lifting as much as possible.

Jiu jitsu/grappling – I’m getting a bit better. I’m working on it as much as I can. I’m probably still like, sub white belt level anyways.

Cataloguing books – I need to find an app/scanner to make it easier.

Make an item of clothing – I have plans and schemes and stuff but I haven’t started.

Travel to an unvisited country – Not yet, no plans.

Safari write up – Oooooopps. I’m just lazy. <_<

Publish 2-3 papers – They’re not submitted yet

Make macarons – When I’m back from England.

Blog series – I started my tea reviews though that ties in with 23.. Soon, soon.